Strategy Deployment and Estuarine Mapping

Estuarine Mapping

First, a very quick review of the Estuarine Mapping process for context. For more depth, I’d recommend starting with this description by Dave Snowden, and this experience report by Tom Kerwin. There are three basic steps.

1. Describe where you are now (the current state) using constraints and constructors. This generates a granular list of items that can be managed.
2. Visualise these items in terms of the amount of time, and the amount of energy (resource, people, cost) required to make any changes.
3. Decide which items to take immediate action on, and the type of action, based on that visualisation.

Insights

There were 3 key things that struck me about Estuarine Mapping:

• It creates a collated view of both strategy and tactics. The positioning and clustering of items on the map inform a choice of ‘why’ to work on some things even over others (the strategy). At the same time, the chosen items represent ‘what’ work will be done (the tactics).

• It’s a continuous process. There is never a final right answer, but there is an ongoing process of iteration and refinement. That happens across all three steps, and not necessarily linearly. Firstly, identifying and breaking down the constraints and constructors. Secondly, placing and moving them on the map. Finally, identifying and evolving the actions. I can imagine how an Estuarine Map might be a persistent artefact which is revisited and updated on a regular basis to explore what has changed and what the next actions should be.

• It’s a collaborative effort. The level of engagement and conversation required to explore, identify and refine the elements in the various steps is extremely high. Further, a high diversity of participation will create richer discussions. However, even though it will be intensive and time-consuming, it will be well worth it given the deep insights and novel ideas generated.

Strategy Deployment

On the one hand, I think Esturaine Mapping is more about strategy “development” than “deployment”. The output is focused on identifying the strategic problems to be solved, as opposed to enabling the tactical solutions to emerge. On the other hand, given the collated, continuous and collaborative properties described above, I think it is a perfect fit for a Strategy Deployment. Additionally, Estuarine Mapping identifies many of the elements that can go on an X-Matrix. Specifically:

• The choices of which items to take action on can easily be phrased as Strategies.
• The actions themselves, with their types, naturally become Tactics.
• Where actions require some indicator (e.g. monitoring, or conditional types), then those become the Evidence.

I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to explore Estuarine Mapping in more detail and I’m excited by the potential. Let me know if you’d be interested in being part of that!